Yellow Sky
by corbyinoz2
Summary: Scott has always struggled to control his anger. He learned long ago how important it is that he finds a way to do it. A much younger Gordon was the reason he learned that lesson, but it's not Gordon's fault he's close to losing it now, in the middle of a dangerous rescue...
1. Chapter 1

**Yellow Sky**

 **Summary:**

Scott has always struggled to control his anger. He learned long ago how important it is that he finds a way to do it. A much younger Gordon was the reason he learned that lesson, but it's not Gordon's fault he's close to losing it now, in the middle of a dangerous rescue...

 **Notes:**

This is the third installment of The Bittersweet Symphony, a series that looks at our boys today and considers an incident from their childhood that helped to make them the way they are.  
This story draws heavily on the first installment, An Aquanaut Walks Into a Bar. If you have not read that story, much of the significance and impact of this one will be lost. It also features an incident briefly referenced in Edge of the World: Here be Dragons. And, of course, the title is a 'Hamilton' ref.

 **Chapter 1**

 **Chapter Text**

Thank god for Virgil.

Wasn't the first time Scott had thought that over their career as Thunderbirds – over the course of his remembered life, come to think of it.

Thank god for Virgil. Should have that tattooed on his inner thigh or something.

Because these winds were killing him, killing them both, and Thunderbird Two's hatch was open to the elements and the chair lift was being readied, in the face of a blizzard that redefined whiteout, that had One swinging about like a child's toy dangling from the flimsiest of strings, and Two was hanging there, redefining mountain peaks.

Virgil, somehow, was keeping Two steady enough to allow Gordon, securely harnessed, to venture his head outside into the blast and get a feel for the situation. Which currently could be described as ten to twelve people trapped in a wildly swinging cable car, one hundred and fifty feet above the valley floor in northern Italy. Four cable cars extended from mountain top to valley, two on top of another two, each one suspended on a pair of parallel cables. This particular car was hanging off one of the lower ones, one half of the clamps that kept it securely fastened broken loose in the blizzard so that it tipped at a dizzying angle less than a yard from one of the supporting pylons. Even from his position in One Scott could see kids in there, huddling against adults. When the flying snow shifted just enough he could see the faces of those parents. Numb with terror, and the horror that comes with knowing you brought your children with you to their deaths. It made a very private part of his heart hurt whenever he saw that look.

All attempts to send securing lines from Two above had been thwarted by the proximity of the pylon only feet away. Light plastic alloy with a thin metal frame couldn't attract a magnetised clamp as all that iron could. It meant their time to rescue was only as long as the remaining clamps were strong, and with the angles of swing the car was achieving, that strength was being eroded by the second.

"Gordon! What do you think?"

"I think I should have been an accountant." Gordon pulled his head back in to increase the chance of being heard over the howling wind. "The chair's gonna be impossible as a straight option, I think. The top cables and the towers are in the way."

Virgil's voice, as improbably steady as his bird.

"Can you get close enough to bring them across to the chair if I keep her tight?"

"Rope and tie 'em?" The lightness of his tone betrayed nothing of the fact his kid brother was about to somehow swing out into this maelstrom on the end of a line and take twelve lives in his own hands. If he stopped to think about it, it would chill the hell out of Scott. "Yeah. Best option, I think. Gotta get them over fast as we can, and I just wanna take one run if we can get them into the chair."

A blur of dark against the shattering white, and a line was fired across to the roof of the cable car. The automatic clamp at the end bit hard into the car's surface before activating the magnetic grip.

"Alright. Getting in tight now."

Scott watched as Virgil extracted every last bit of stability out of the big green whale of a craft. His own bird strained and shifted against the forces sweeping down across the Alps, crazy in their directional shifts, frightening in their power. How Virgil worked so precisely with something so bulky confounded Scott, but the wherefores of it didn't matter. As long as Virgil could do it, and Gordon could manoeuvre that agile body of his well enough to keep from being dashed against the pylons, against the side of Two, against the cable car…

"Gordon, you sure you can do this?"

"Piece of cake. Unh." That came from Gordon trying to let himself gently out of the access hatch, keeping an even pressure on the harness line. Scott could see how the wind flattened him against the underside of Two, how he pushed himself further off from it, against every instinct of self-preservation. "With – with cherries and - cream on top."

If Gordon was panting like that, the effort required was immense.

"I'm going to come in upwind, Virgil, see if One can't keep some of that off of Gordon."

"Negative, Scott. The crosswind's too strong."

"No, I can do it." Staying back was simply not an option. "I'm calculating the ergs against One's stabilisers. She'll do it."

Virgil's voice was doubtful.

"If you say so."

The moment he brought One into the headwind and then turned sideways, bolstering the airspace in which Gordon was now sliding against the blizzard's force, she shuddered and bucked like a skittish horse. He grunted with the strain of holding her there, even though the engines did all the work, even though the controls were powered and took almost everything away from the pilot in effect. He knew they all did it. The sheer unavoidability of gripping controls tightly and urging a body to turn the machine beneath them was a ridiculous failing they were all prey to, and he didn't even pretend he was ever going to deny it.

Now he worked as much with his mind as his body to keep One stable, keep her helping to shield Gordon as he did their everyday work of risking his life in terrifying circumstances for strangers in peril.

"Shit." Gordon sounded harried, but not overwhelmed. "This is tricky. Thunderbird Five, any way of communicating with these guys?"

John came through, "Sorry, Gordon. I'm not getting any kind of signal anymore. That blizzard's knocking out the phone transmission."

"Okay, okay. Okay."

Three okays in a row was I'm-in-trouble in Gordon speak. Everything in Scott urged him to fix that, right now.

"Gordon. What do you need?"

"Just – unh – just hang on a sec. Gotta get this door open. Not exactly – uh, cooperating."

"Do you want me to come over?"

"No, I got it."

"I'm coming over."

"He's got it, Scott." Virgil, deep and sure. "Gordon, I'm sending the chair down now. You'll need to get a line from it to the car."

"Yeah. I've got – okay, I'm in."

And then it was the Gordon Show, the one that took centre stage when people were screaming and whimpering and threatening, as they were now... Get us out of here! Get me off here! Au secours! Where have you been? Where have you been? Nos ayudan! My children, my babies, take them, please, take them…

He'd heard the Gordon Show a hundred times before, more, and it always impressed him in a way he'd never pass on, because come on. None of them spoke of the things that impressed them about each other, unless it was Virgil, the one man cheer squad. Brothers' rules of engagement demanded otherwise. Virgil was just weird like that.

"Okay, folks, it's all okay now. You're all fine now. Just stay calm, take it easy. Relajarse. Détendre."

And really, how could he sound like this was less a swing in a blizzard, more a walk in the park? Scott had his own calming routine, he knew that, but it went into a well of dry deprecation that somehow managed to insult his people into certainty. Gordon's was easy and light and totally sure, and now he was chatting with the kids like it was all one big fun adventure in the sky especially arranged by the parents, who were probably near incapacitated with fear at this point and no doubt dumbfounded by the sunny little guy telling them to chill, this is just standard operating procedure, folks.

"Gordon, sooner's better."

Virgil, heart-beating the rescue.

"Okay, I just got word we're good to go. We've got a secure chair over there, about fifteen feet, and I'm gonna harness each of you up and take you over to it, one at a time, okay?"

Another voice, snarling.

"You can't! There's a goddamn blizzard, you can't! Where's the proper damn rescue?"

Alpha male turned whipped cur, and of all the treacherous types to encounter when rescuing, this was the one Scott most distrusted. Gordon's response was perfectly practiced placation.

"Sir, I'm going to ask you to take a seat. I'll take Mom here and the two kids first, and then we'll get the rest of you off. It's very safe."

"No! Here! Here!" The panic in the man's voice sent every kind of alarm through Scott, and useless as it was, he found himself warning, "Gordon, watch him."

"Yeah, yeah, got it, One. Ha, no sir, that's my controller, telling me there's a good window for bringing you all off here." There wasn't, of course, but Gordon's ability to bullshit was spectacular in rescue mode. "It's not just me up here. We've got a plane just sitting over there, and we'll get you to it, no problem, if you all stay calm and do as I say. Please put away your money, sir."

It was only because he knew Gordon so well that Scott heard the 'you stupid asshole' under that particular directive.

"There's more. I've got more."

"Sir, I really don't want your money. I need you to sit back down while I get Mama here harnessed up. There, you're all set. Vamos, mamacita, yes, I know, they're coming over next, okay? Uh, bébés siguiente. Jeez, John, you got a better translation for me?"

"Does she understand you?" John's tone was as cool as ever, another anchor for the brother being tossed in a failing tin can murderously high in the air.

"I think so. Yes. Yeah, okay, we're good. Leaving the car now. First one coming over, Two. We're – unf."

"You got eyes on him, Virgil?"

"Nope. Heat monitor only." Virgil's voice was down another octave, which Scott seriously didn't think possible. "How you doing, Gordon?"

Scott jumped in on the heels of that one.

"Keep talking to us, Thunderbird Four."

Heavy panting on the line was their only answer for several long seconds, and then another grunt.

"Relajarse, Mama, stay here, hold on. Espera. Bringing back kids now. Yeah, hey, guys? This is slow going. Might do it in groups. Get the kids over, then extend the line and get those three up into Two. It's taking long enough that by the time it came back down we'd just be bringing another one over."

Scott frowned. "Your call, Gordon. Will they get themselves out of the seats once they're in Two though?"

"I think. I'll explain to – yeah, can you move please sir, let me in – thanks. I'll explain to the kids, they'll get it. Hey, Fabiana? Yeah, you're next. Take you over to Mom, okay? Amalia, I'll take Fabiana and then I'll come back for you. You'll be the first ones up into the plane, and then I need you to hop out of the seats and the chair will get sent back down, okay?"

A high-pitched voice, a girl trying hard to keep it together for her younger sibling's sake. "Sure. Fabiana, just hold on tight, do what he says."

"I don't wanna go out there!"

"Listen," and Asshole was back, obviously talking into Gordon's ear, the desperation cranked up another notch. "Listen, I run a big company back in the States. Plangett's Engineering, heard of it? I can give you pretty much anything you want. Just get me off first."

Oh, boy.

"Sir, your wife and your kids will be next."

"Hey, come on now. Come on. I mean, us Americans, we gotta stick together, right?"

If it was possible to drop the temperature any further in that tiny, frozen car, they just lost twenty degrees.

"Your family is next, sir. Please sit down."

"You don't understand! Christ, what kinda moron – listen, no, I'm sorry, but man, listen, I can give you anything. Name it."

"Come on, Fabiana. That harness looks real cute on you. I can see your mom over there, can you see her?" Scott was pretty sure that was a complete lie, but he could imagine the little girl blinking through the snow, trying desperately to see what the man in blue was seeing. "We'll be there in a minute. Ready?"

A swear, muffled, moving away from the mic, and then the sound of the blizzard filled his ear piece as Gordon started on his second trip.

"Virgil? How are you holding up?"

"Oh, just peachy, Scott. One blown away yet?"

"Not quite yet."

The blizzard was thickening. If it kept up like this, give it another half hour and they'd be able to walk over to rescue these people. Scott drummed his fingers on the console.

"You think I should go in there?"

"No, I think he's got it. But – keep listening."

A snort he couldn't resist. "Copy that."

Whenever Gordon's voice cut back in it brought with it a sense of the effort it was taking to slide himself and another person up and along a thin wire in the teeth of a force eight gale, only to manhandle them into a seat at the end of it.

"Guys, got two in my pocket, heading back for the third."

"FAB, Four. Take it steady."

"Really? Great advice. Thanks, Overlord."

He heard Virgil's chuckle. Okay, so his pleadings for care were a never-ending source of amusement for his siblings. Sue him. He defied anyone to sit and listen as their kid brother dangled a hundred and fifty feet up in the air and not urge caution. If his words were any kind of bargaining, he'd offer them on each breath, take the mockery forever. They were his own offerings to the gods of salvage, and to not cast them out would be to tempt their rebuke.

And at a hundred and fifty feet in the air, that would only be unthinkable.

The third child was harnessed up, Gordon's chatter bright and cheerful as he took her across the abyss to where her mother strained for her through the snow filled sky.

Scott heard him yelling above the gale.

"Alright, remember, straight out and back from the edge when you get up there, okay? Promise?"

Apparently a promise was given, because Gordon's next words were, "We're set. Take 'em away, Virge."

"Got it."

Even with squinting, Scott couldn't see the chair being retracted deep into Two's hold. Visibility must be less than ten feet. Shitty, shitty conditions for a rescue, and not having eyes on it as it happened less than fifty feet away just ratcheted up Scott's tension.

"They in? Virgil? You got them?"

"Standing by, Scott." Ugh, two of his least favourite words, and Virgil, damn him, didn't keep the knowledge of that out of his voice. "Yeah, we've got the first group out, and the chair lift's going back down."

"Come on," Scott muttered. A vicious gust caught One, and cursing, he worked hard to bring her tail back around, maintaining that meagre resistance to the wind that was all he could do at this stage.

The gust brought snow, but then, as blizzards could do, a patch of comparatively clear air carrying only a sparse swirl of snowflakes followed it. For the first time, Scott could see the cable car, could see Gordon expertly swinging back to the door, even as he heard him start to say, "Okay, I need - "

"I get it, I do." Asshole again, and Scott's fists clenched. "Playing hardball, huh? Look, you're a working stiff, you don't get how this works, but I have real money, guy. I go next, and I can set you up for life."

A woman's voice, confused. "Bernard, what are you - ?"

Gordon almost never sounded harsh, but when he did, it packed a surprising punch, full of WASP and Dad and his own brand of allergy towards selfish jerks.

"Sit your ass down. Now. Over there. Ma'am? If you'd come here and get this – "

And Scott was watching, his brain a half second behind in understanding what his eyes were telling him, as a man suddenly lunged past Gordon, visible as a blur of blue, and grabbed onto the harness attached to the wire. The action seemed to drag Gordon along in its wake, spinning him around and back through the car door, falling out and down for a heart obliterating moment until the security wire and his own arm snagged him, legs working wildly for balance, half in and half out of the cable car.

Scott gave an involuntary shout. Virgil's response was instant, and its urgency made a lie of every measured comment to date.

"What? Scott, what?"

The man was hauling himself up the line, but after only a few feet he stopped, stymied by the slipperiness of the wire and the cold that froze it to his bare hands.

"It's okay. Gordon got knocked, but he's still secure." It took a lot, but Scott resisted his almost overwhelming need to demand something from Gordon to affirm his safety. It looked like Gordon was pulling himself back up into the car, and he'd need all his concentration for that.

It might also have something to do with the fact that Scott's heart was pounding in his throat, pretty effectively blocking further speech.

"Gordon!"

"Hold on, Virgil, he's getting himself back in. Give him a moment."

"He came out of the car?"

That was the closest Virgil ever came to a yell on a rescue.

"He's okay, Virgil, I can see him, he's back in. He's sitting on the floor of the car."

"Gordon? Come in, Gordon! What's going on?"

Virgil, unsighted, was quickly losing his moorings.

Gordon wasn't answering, and while the snow was clear enough for Scott to see him, he couldn't tell anything else about him. He could also see the wire jerking as the man began cycling his legs in mid-air, obviously panicking, equally obviously a danger to himself and to anyone who tried to rescue him.

"Dammit," he breathed. "Gordon, what's your status?"

A crackle on the comms, and then Gordon was there, and for the briefest of moments, Scott allowed himself to feel reassured.

"Yeah. Here. So. That happened."

"Are you okay?"

"Huh. Yeah. Um…"

More ice in his belly than was flying outside, and Scott brought everything to bear in the way he asked the next question.

"What's your status, Thunderbird Four?"

"I'm – yeah. Maybe a bit- ah, dammit, that stupid sonofa – I gotta go, Scott, that guy's out there, he's gonna get himself killed."

"Gordon! Are you hurt?"

A pause, as Gordon obviously weighed up the demands of the situation with the need for honesty.

"My shoulder's pulled a muscle, I think. Kinda wrenched. Maybe worse? But I can still get the job done."

The second youngest Tracy admitting he was in any way hurt? In the middle of a rescue, no less?

"Alright. Standby." The situation had just become extraordinarily clear to Scott, and all uncertainty fled as he checked his instruments and then handed over to distant control. Thunderbird One shifted a little in the handover, but then stabilised again. "Thunderbird Five, you have oversight of One's controls. Please acknowledge."

"Acknowledged." Surprise and concern in John's voice, but tamped down into something that sounded like mild confusion. "Scott, I wouldn't advise that in these conditions."

"I wouldn't advise it either, but it's happening. Can you manage?"

"EOS has secured remote control of One, Scott. We'll do our best, but make it fast as you can."

"FAB. Gordon, I'm coming over."

A deep groan from Gordon.

"You're kidding me. Uh, newsflash, Scotty. Blizzard."

"I know." Amazing how much more comfortable he felt when it was his own life on the line. "I'm coming on a line, with jetpack to adjust for turbulence. I'll be there in thirty seconds."

"What? No, come on. Virgil?"

Virgil would be on his side, Scott knew, and he confirmed it almost at once.

"Looks like back-up's needed, Gordon. Just hang in there, we'll rescue your sorry ass."

"I don't need res – ooh." And that was Gordon trying to stand up and suddenly finding himself sitting again. "Okay. Don't crowd me, just give me a sec here."

Scott chuckled, dry and hard. "I'll give you more than a sec. Coming over now."

He used the instruments on board to connect to the heat sensors in the cable car, then fired the line low into the vessel. The usual satisfying thump of connection was lost in the howling.

The impact of the blizzard, survival suit or not, was immense. Even just standing in the hatchway saw him using every ounce of strength in his thighs to stay upright.

"Leaving One." And leaping into a turbulence that threatened to spin him upside down in the first ten feet. He angled his body, expert at this, and the jets pushed him forward and straight, one hand clutching the mobile clamp circled around the wire. Only fifteen seconds of travel time, but it was as purely challenging as anything he'd ever done, to barrel into whiteness knowing the target would suddenly appear right in front of him.

And it did, a block of dull darkness becoming more distinct in a half second of further travel. He angled his body to bring his legs forward so that his boots connected with the door at the front of the car, then cut the jets to allow himself to wrangle the door open.

He almost stumbled over Gordon.

His brother was sitting, his own body holding very still in the tell-tale position of someone with a dislocated shoulder, folded in and very obviously not moving.

"How did you plan to get out there and grab him?" Scott said, by way of greeting.

Gordon spoke through clenched teeth.

"Figured I'd get someone to pull it back in for me."

"Uh-huh. Nope. You're grounded. I'll go get Mister Me-first. You stay put."

"Yeah." Even in this pale light, with the helmet on, Scott could see that Gordon's face had gone a pasty grey. "You have my permission to do that."

"Good to hear. Virgil?"

"Here, Scott."

"Gonna grab my line and shoot it into Two's belly. Figure I can ferry them up with the jets, speed things up a bit."

"FAB. Just be careful."

"Yeah, yeah." A quick, gentle squeeze on Gordon's uninjured shoulder, and Scott opened the door again, disengaged the line to the car from One and re-directed it to Thunderbird Two, visible only as a faint square of yellow light from the hold. He fired straight up through it, knowing that no one would be in the way of it. Anyone in the hold would be standing well back from the opening.

He connected, attached it to his belt, and set off.

And it happened just as he approached the man flailing in mid-air, stuck to the wire, half in and half out of the harness that was the only thing stopping him from plummeting to a death he'd almost ensured. A moment, a jolt, and the pure anger that banked for explosion the moment Scott saw this man push his little brother out of the way let him know it was there, ready and waiting.

There was a time when a much younger Scott Tracy would succumb to that anger. Ballistic, destructive, hell-bent fury that consumed him, that left nothing of reason or compassion in its surrounds. He knew it well, and he channelled it carefully, harnessing its energy to keep going when fate and exhaustion and physics told him he couldn't. The ability to do so was hard-won, and the victory was never a conclusive one.

Oddly enough, it was Gordon who taught him to deny it.

And Gordon was uppermost in his thoughts as Scott reached over, grabbed the harness and pulled it into a tight throttle, bringing the man with it.

Shocked into submission, the man grasped Scott's hands and stared, panicked, into his eyes.

"I've got you," and if it sounded a good deal less reassuring in the way Scott delivered it to this particular rescuee, well, he should be damned grateful he got it at all.

With the jet it was easier, but not easy, to get the man off the line and up into the belly of Two.

Scott dumped him as unceremoniously as he had ever dumped a human being in his life.

"Stay there," he said, and wrenched the harness from the man.

"You – you can't – "

"I said, 'Stay!'" All pretence at respect gone, and Scott bent over to let just an ounce of that fury out through his voice. "You left your family behind. You nearly killed yourself. And you knocked my brother out of that car, you risked his life and got him injured. I'd be just as happy to make sure you stay down with my fists. Do you understand me?"

The man was a fool, and a selfish one at that, but even he understood the message Scott was sending. His eyes dropped and he brought his hands up together against his chest, hunched over against their burning pain.

"My hands – "

"Will be dealt with when I know everyone is safely off that car." Scott's lips curled, and he went to say something else; but then he just muttered, "Ah, you're not worth it," and turned back to the screaming wind and snow.

"You okay down there, Thunderbird One?"

"FAB, Virgil. Beginning Operation Human Chairlift."

It took twenty minutes to get Gordon back into the safety of Thunderbird Two. He was the last, at his own insistence.

"Hey, if I'm here, they know they're gonna be rescued," he said, in a low voice to Scott when Scott's own desire was to take him first.

He understood, and he knew his need for Gordon to be safe was simply a reflex to be overcome. Through his earpiece he could hear Gordon chattering away to the remaining travellers, coaxing out stories and nerve-drenched laughter. When it came to just the last passenger, the man shook Gordon's good hand before leaving with a tiring Scott.

It was doable, using the jet pack and the line, but it wasn't without extraordinary physical effort. By the time Scott recovered his footing in the swinging cable car for the last run, he had to stop and lean against the door jamb just to get back some of the breath snatched away by the wind.

"Look at you. Getting too old, Scotty. Virgil, get the wheelchair, this guy's not gonna make it."

"Shut – shut up."

Maneuvering a harness around an injured body was something they all trained for, but even so, it was impossible to complete the task without causing pain. Mannequins didn't gasp as an arm was lifted slightly to slide a strap beneath it, and even in the roar of the blizzard, Scott heard the soft groan as the harness was tightened and clipped to.

"You okay there, Four?"

"Mmmm."

Non-verbal responses meant Gordon was finding his happy place just now, he'd return the call when he got back. Scott's lips thinned in another spark of anger at the jerk who did this, and he used it to find the energy to lift Gordon to his feet, bring him secure against his own body, and launch himself back into the blast chamber between the cable car and Two.

Over the years of rescue work, and even before that, in the USAF, Scott had come to recognise that the last trip was the most perilous. A sense of premature relief; the tiniest moment of relaxation. Dad identified and cautioned against it; instructors hammered the stakes home, again and again. Accidents on airfields underlined the point. And yet, Scott felt it, the second they left the dangling, crippled car – a little kick of gratitude, a little involuntary lessening of tension. It made him hold on to Gordon just that bit tighter.

"Almost there," he said, and the wind took his words for a chew toy. Gordon didn't reply, just hung on as best he could and really, that's all Scott wanted from him.

Green rendered grey by the snow loomed ahead – and then they were up, into brightness and air that didn't try to shred the flesh from his bones, and Scott's feet were suspended over whirling whiteness for several seconds before Virgil closed the hatch beneath him and he could lower his boots to solidity for the first time in twenty-five frenetic minutes.

"Virgil, we're all done. I'll get Gordon settled then head back to One."

"Uh – negative, Scott. One's gone."

"What!?"

"Sorry, Scott, I need to work on my phrasing. The second you two were on-board EOS sent One vertical. She'll be above this weather in no time."

"Wow, Virge," Gordon said, as Scott lowered him to the floor. In the interior light of Two's hold, a faint sheen of perspiration could be seen across a face that was now a pasty white.

"Yeah. Wow, Virge." Scott muttered it as he fussed, re-positioning Gordon slightly so that a strut supported his back.

"Sorry. Hold on. I'll find us some yellow sky."

"Ha." It was a weak kind of laugh, more of an exhalation, as Gordon brought his left arm around to support his dislocated right shoulder. "You – you remember when Dad would say that?"

"Sure." Scott came back from one of the first aid lockers that lined the walls of the hold and knelt back beside him. "'Let's go find some yellow sky.' Somewhere quiet in the middle of a storm."

"He'd say that."

"Yeah."

"Dad."

"Yeah."

"Not blue."

"No, not blue."

"That's kinda weird, hey."

This was Gordon drifting in the wake of his damage, and Scott quickly readied the site-specific hypodermic shot that would steady his course. It was a kind of magic, this part, one he didn't get to see as often as the younger three did. He watched as the analgesic hit its target, as Gordon's mind, folded upon itself in agony just like his body was folded around the injury, loosened and relaxed almost at once as the siege upon his consciousness was raised. A lopsided grin cut through the white of Gordon's face, and Scott gave an answering one when he saw it.

"Better?"

Gordon dropped his head back against the strut.

"Yeah. Oh, yeah. Thanks, Scott."

Scott nodded, and lifted his eyes for the quick survivor assessment survey that was second nature to him now.

Twelve people; four children, three teens, five adults.

The three teenage girls, probably on a gap year tour of Europe, thin and dressed more for cute than comfort – they needed thermal blankets, stat. So did the mother and her two boys, the elder of whom was staring, glaze-eyed, at the floor. In fact, given the particulars of this rescue, thermal blankets all round sounded like just the thing.

The woman was clutching at the younger boy as if she were the child. Scott wasn't always one for reading a room in ways beyond survival needs, but this time, he couldn't help but wince internally. What would it do to her, to her boys, to know that their husband and father had tried to buy his way to safety ahead of them?

And speaking of…

"I need to see the pilot."

"Hey," Scott said to the elder of the two boys, catching his attention from the study of Two's floor, "What's your name?"

The boy raised green eyes sick with disillusion to his. It made something catch in Scott's chest, that look. The contemptible moron at his back couldn't see what he was doing, what he'd done, when he looked at his son's face, and the thought of it hurt a man who had every reason to hero-worship his own dad.

"Travis."

"Well, hey, Travis. Think you could come help me, grab some blankets for everyone?"

The boy looked questioningly at his mother, who hesitated until Scott gave her the smile Gordon once described as reckless use of dimples in a built-up area.

"He'll be fine, ma'am."

"Are you listening to me?" Mister Me-First moved over to stand in Scott's personal space, obviously recovered from whatever submissiveness Scott had won earlier.

"No, sir," and Scott turned the same smile on him as he'd given the man's wife, "I'm really not."

"I need to speak to the pilot, dammit! Where the hell are you taking us?"

"Well, right now I'm heading over to that locker. And I'm relying on this brave boy to help distribute blankets to everyone." Scott beamed brighter, but his eye assumed a hard glint that even someone as self-absorbed as Me-First couldn't fail to read. "Is he your son?"

"Well, yes, but I don't see – "

"You must be very proud of him. And his brother over there. They handled themselves so well. If you'll excuse me, sir…"

"You have no right to take us anywhere we don't want! I need to get back to Turin, I'm meeting some very important people there tomorrow, and I can't get waylaid by some kinda cowboy operation like this! You better let me speak to the pilot, goddammit, and if you don't want one hell of a lawsuit on your lap, mister, you better do it now."

The temptation was there, so strong. Just to haul back and deck this guy. One hard punch, a tap really, right to the jaw, just – there. Shut him up, set him down, put him out of commission. And no one would blame him.

"Scott? How are things down there?"

Hell, they'd probably give him a round of applause.

"Fine, Virgil. You got someplace in mind to land?"

"Turin's socked in. We've got clearance into Milan."

"FAB."

"Milan?" Me-First was nothing if not predictable. "Everything's in Turin! The hotel's in Turin! Everything's there, my portcom, all our clothes – what the hell am I gonna do in Milan?"

But Scott didn't even need Virgil's voice, or Gordon's sympathetic look, to remind him.

He'd made a promise, to himself and to his dad and to Gordon, most of all. Just over ten years ago, come to think of it.

He thought of it, and put his arm around Travis's shoulder, trying to find some way, however feeble, of compensating for a father who would never ask that kind of promise from his son.

"Come on. Let's get those blankets, maybe some hot chocolate, what do you think? And afterwards, if we ask nicely, you can hear that one, over there – " he pointed to Gordon, still smiling with the relief that comes with the death of pain, "murder the latest k-pop."

His brothers safe, the people safe, warmth and light and somewhere ahead, yellow sky. And if the incessant complaint of a selfish jerk was hardly the best of travelling conversation, well, Milan was close, Two was loud, and he had the thought of the promise kept to brighten the way home.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Text**

It's not that the car was the thing Scott most loved in the world. His family would always take that position, even if sometimes his level of annoyance and impatience with them can become something well into the red zone. But love could be used to describe what he felt whenever he thought of it, or worked on it, or just stood there admiring it as it grew to something special under his hand.

It was many things, really. It was the car itself; a rarity, an unwanted, unloved fuel driven manual automobile that had lines of long and lovely sleekness under the rust when he found her. It was the way he'd saved so hard for her, and pleaded so long, and eventually won a round in the kind of subtle tug of war that was Jeff Tracy's parenting style so that he could go and collect her from behind a barn on a farm thirty miles away. It was the brutal neglect that called out his helplessly noble heart; the way he'd had to pull weeds and wire and mud from within and throughout her, the way crusted on chicken shit and rust marred and stained her beauty until he picked her up and began work on her, every night he could spare, to excavate the loveliness beneath the mire.

These were the reasons for his love most easily accessed, most readily explained, if asked.

The other reasons were hidden deep in his mind and soul, and he never looked at those, because the burning ache they prompted were just too much for him.

Scott just loved his car, and everyone knew this. Time spent working on her, bringing her back into working order, was sacred to him. He was big brother Scott every morning before school, and most weekends. He was football champion Scott two nights a week and most Saturday afternoons. He was student Scott on the other nights and half Sunday. He was his dad's right hand man, his grandmother's shield, 24/7. The hours plucked here and there from his schedule to be spent with his baby were the times when he recharged his own self. Dad sternly supported that rule; leave Scott be when he's with the car. Grandma was ready with a wooden spoon to smack the knuckles of any younger sibling who thoughtlessly invaded Scott's precious time. So, usually, this was quiet and concentrated time alone in the back of the barn, perhaps the only hour of the entire week that could be called his own.

Only, for some benighted, blasted, buggering reason, not tonight.

Long week, hard training after a calamitous loss last weekend. Finals kicking his ass. Virgil down in the dumps for some reason, and whenever that happened Scott was abruptly reminded of just how much he relied on him to run interference with the family doings. Dad scowling because work was not doing what he wanted it to, something that Jeff Tracy couldn't abide with any kind of equanimity for longer than a day or two. The level of scowling was getting dangerous.

So Scott really, really need some down time.

Not a little jerk of a brother swinging around above his head, sucking on a carton of chocolate milk and taunting Scott's complete inability to get at him.

Scott had the bonnet up, the computerised works exposed. Last week he got the first flicker of life out of them, thanks to an assist from Virgil. So close to getting her running again, so close to realising the dream he'd had since he was ten.

And goddamned Gordon was flying around above his head on a rope set from the hayloft to a rafter, singing. Had been for the last fifteen minutes of hell.

"Gordon, seriously. Just – just go away. Seriously."

Scott needed his time with the car to be alone, because he remembered when it wasn't.

"Seriously," Gordon parroted, and the level of mimicry was fingernails on a glass-top levels of aggravating. "Seriously, Scott. Your brain's gonna get a hernia, the way you keep looking at my butt like you want to bite it."

"Beat it, you mean," Scott muttered. "Which is what I'm asking you, politely, for the ninetieth time, to do."

"But I'm having soooo much fun." To demonstrate, Gordon released himself and swung back from where he'd perched on the rafter to the more solid platform of the hayloft, one leg kicking out at Scott as he did so, just too quick for Scott to jump up and grab it.

"Jesus Christ. You are such a brat."

"Wow." Gordon took a noisy slurp from his milk. "Wait till I tell Grandma that you blasphemed with malice afore-thunk."

"Could you be any more annoying?"

"Why yes, Scotty." Gordon assumed pure solemnity. "Yes, I can."

Scott gritted his teeth, and leant on the car.

"Alright, you little extortionist."

"Contortionist?" Gordon pretended to cup his ear. "You want acrobatics, Scooter?"

"Extor – never mind." He wouldn't give Gordon the satisfaction of a face-palm, but it was a close-run thing. "What will it take to get you to leave me alone? Just for one damn hour? Huh?"

And, to his surprise, Gordon looked wrong-footed. Or at least, as wrong footed as a goat-nimble ten year old ever could be.

"Ooooh. This is a new and exciting development."

"It really isn't."

"Yeah, it really, really is. How about – " and Gordon punctuated the negotiation with a sudden launch and swing back to the rafter, the tip of his foot tapping the back of Scott's skull in an infuriatingly expert move of pure evil – "how about you do my chores on Saturday morning?"

Saturday morning chores were the real deal. All Tracy boys contributed, at some length, and any exhibited chagrin earned a penalty of Saturday afternoon chores as well.

This was playing for high stakes, and Scott rebelled.

"No. Here's my counter offer. You get down from there and go the hell away and I won't beat the ever-loving shit out of your skinny butt." Which was no kind of threat in reality, and both of them knew it. Gordon just grinned his knowledge, and zoomed back again.

"Every second you resist is time lost on your precious."

This was true, and Scott slammed his hands against the roof of the car.

"Why are you doing this? Don't you have homework? What the hell is your problem?"

"Me? I ain't got no stinkin' problem." And he looked like it too, twirling about on the end of the line like he was having a ball.

At Scott's expense.

There were few options available to Scott at this time. All-out war would see a game of chasey across the barn, and Gordon had the advantage of the swing rope. If Scott climbed up there, Gordon would swing away and that was that. Many hours of playing in the barn had proven the efficacious nature of ownership of the rope.

Pleading and threatening had failed. Gordon, in Scott's opinion, had no better nature to appeal to.

He could begin throwing missiles at his little brother. That would work. Possibly. The trouble was, that tactic could see someone actually get hurt, and for all that Scott felt his anger and stress building in the base of his spine, his belly, he couldn't deliberately set out to do that.

There was one last tactic to bring to bear, and even though victory would be a Pyrrhic one, at this point any pleasure he might have gotten through working in peace and quiet was gone.

Scorched earth, and fear of the dark, it was.

"Fine. You know what? Fine. My one time to myself and you want to wreck it. Well played, Gordo. Congrats." Scott threw down the small pliers he'd been about to use on the computer at the heart of his girl and stood back, arms wide. Gordon appreciated dramatic gestures, but at the moment, there was nothing contrived about Scott's actions. He was done. Frustrated, furious, and done.

His little brother peered down at him, and for the first time on this cold Kansas afternoon so close to evening, Scott saw something like doubt creep into his face. He continued, contemptuous.

"You happy? Please, go right on swinging around up there. Be my guest. I'm going back inside. Thanks, bro. No, really. Thanks a whole lot."

The doubt was now completely revealed on Gordon's face, and his tone echoed it.

"You mad?"

"No, Gordon, I'm just thrilled to bits to have my one – " He stopped, drew a deep breath. "You know what? It's not worth talking to you. I'm going in."

"No, wait. I don't want to be out here on my own," and even in his deep-seated anger, Scott could hear the sudden note of alarm in Gordon's voice. At the same time it began to occur to him that somewhere in his deluded little mind, Gordon had thought that this was a mutually enjoyable game of cat and mouse.

"Well, that's what you've got. Like I said, enjoy the barn. I'm gone. And -" he held it up and waggled it, "I'm taking the flashlight with me."

It was a dark walk even in early evening from the barn to the farmhouse, once the barn lights were off. And the sky visible through the skylights high above showed a deepening grey.

He reached up to pretend to bring down the bonnet, just as Gordon sat on the edge of the hayloft and began the gentle swing that allowed him to slide with it to the end of the rope and drop to the barn floor.

"Wait. Just – wait, Scott, don't go!"

And Gordon, in his haste, launched himself at the wrong angle, swinging hard towards the support post so that he had to suddenly push out one hand to stop himself crashing into it.

The chocolate milk went flying.

It was an accident. Afterwards, Scott would acknowledge that. Physics just being physics. Pure chance that sent the carton spinning in an arc of inevitability.

Right into the exposed heart of his car's computer.

Sparks fizzed and flickered. Signs of life that in truth were markers of death. Bright, sudden, and quickly extinguished, just as Scott gave a howl of rage and grief and leapt over his dying car to grab at a white faced ten year old and slam him hard, back into the post he'd just sacrificed Scott's baby to avoid.

"You!" Shoulders gripped and shaken, nothing but black, bilious fury thundering through him. "You selfish little jerk! Look what you did!"

Slam.

"You wrecked her! You killed her!"

Slam.

"You fucking – little – asshole!"

And Gordon's arms up, his face screwed tight, averted. Terrified.

"Get out! Get the fuck out of here!"

One last slam, and then thrown, away. Away.

And Gordon staggered to his feet and was gone.

Grandpa was the one who found the manual. Some little bookstore in Maine, of all places. So many of the old books pulped and recycled since the forties, but somehow this one, this obscure manual for the maintenance of a 2022 Ford Mustang Fastback, survived. Scott's car was a 2026 model, but the essentials remained, and he remembered so many happy nights spent with Grandpa sitting over at the old table, littered with tools and curry combs and rags and other odds and ends. A lamp suspended above his chair, and Grandpa bent over the old pages, calling out suggestions as Scott pulled this tube, twisted that wire, tried this connection. Grandpa could be gruff, and had little patience for time-wasting, but he and Scott got happily lost in that nexus again and again; boy, wreck, book, grandfather, knowledge and a car and something else besides being built between them.

Now, Scott sat on the packed earth floor of the old barn, his back against the wall, the manual somehow gripped in his hands between his legs, brought tight up against his chest.

And he was crying.

Scott never cried.

Or maybe this wasn't crying. Maybe this was what it felt like to have everything good and happy and joyful squeezed out through your eyes.

He didn't cry when Shari McKenzie dumped him. Publicly. Or when he snapped a tendon first game of the playoffs and missed the entire finals series last year. Or when his best friend moved to New York, or when his partner in the group project plagiarised his section of the paper and so they both got an F and a letter regarding academic misconduct.

Scott didn't cry as they buried Grandpa. As they fed his mother's ashes to the waterfall at Hemmed in Hollow, their favourite camping destination. He stood tall and strong and hard by Dad's side, because Dad was as scattered as the ashes, and there were four kids, just kids, who were in the way of that same gale and needed Scott to anchor them. He held Gordon's hand on one side, John's on the other, as Grandma held to Virgil and Alan, and he nodded his strength across to her.

And now? Now he was doing something over spilled milk, and he guessed it was crying, but it sounded more like great, shuddering scoops of air expelled from somewhere so subterranean it brought the stench of the grave with it.

He didn't know what time it was. He didn't know how long he'd sat there. He didn't know where Gordon, that – that – fucking Gordon, had gone. He didn't know anything, except hurt.

A brilliant light suddenly burst through from above, accompanied with a steady thrum of power.

Daddy's home.

He heard the sound of the engine of the jumper, dropping down in power and height, and realised the noises he'd been making had stopped, too. Now he was just mutely staring at the worn knees of his jeans, at the straw and oily rags beyond. All the anguish within him had reached some kind of plateau; now, he was one single sustained note of pure ache.

Thought of his father made him understand immediately that he couldn't be found here, like this. He crawled to his feet and stumbled back to where the horse trough was tucked into a far corner of the barn for those times when the loose boxes were inhabited and needed water. A quick working of the tap and cold water splashed into the trough, and from there onto his face, again and again until the puffiness he felt around his eyes and the numbness he felt in his jaw both subsided.

He was almost ready when he heard Grandma bellow, "Scott! Gordon! Supper!"

Without any awareness of feeling, he wondered what Dad would say to him. What Gordon would be tattling about even now.

He didn't care.

He just didn't care.

He left the barn without looking back at his car once.

Onto the porch and then in through the back door, into light and warmth and noise and people. His people, but tonight he barely registered their presence.

"There you are, Scott," his grandma said, never one to miss the opportunity to state the obvious. His dad was already seated at the table, along with Virgil and John. "Where's Gordon?"

"Don't know," and his voice was hoarse enough that Grandma looked up from where she was busily dishing out grey looking mashed potatoes.

"Are you getting a sore throat, honey?"

"No." Short and to the point because he was done with so many things now. All of it. All of them.

"Alright then, well, sit down." Grandma squeezed past him to get to the foot of the stairs. "He'll be with Alan. Alan! Supper, now, and bring Gordon."

A clattering down the stairs and a little blond whirlwind exploded into the room, barrelling past Virgil to hop into his seat.

"I'm here! I'm here, but I dunno where Gordon is, Grandma."

"Is it too much to ask that everyone can get to supper on time?' Jeff Tracy looked like he was on the prowl for a head to bite off, so John and Virgil prudently kept theirs down.  
Alan swung his gaze around the kitchen as if expecting Gordon to leap from the cupboards at any second.

"Alan? Is he really not upstairs?"

"I didn't see him," Alan said, obviously excited by the banal mystery. "Want me to go and look?"

"No." His father said it shortly. "He'll come down when he's hungry."

"He wouldn't be outside?" John, twisting to look with casual interest at the darkness framed in the window.

Virgil snorted.

"With his - er, attitude towards a lack of light?"

"If you mean his ridiculous fear of the dark, I doubt if there's anyone here who is not well aware of it," snapped Dad. "I sincerely doubt he's outside. He's no doubt hiding and thinking to inconvenience us all for some purpose. Just start your meals. He'll come down when he's ready."

Something other than numbness began to stir in Scott's belly.

He cleared his throat.

"I – may have – I mean - " His father looked up and fixed him with a glare that left him in no doubt as to Jeff Tracy's tolerance level for dithering.

"What?"

Scott met his father's look.

"He and I had a fight."

Dad said nothing, but the expression suggested further details or else.

"He was mucking around in the barn with a carton of milk and he – " Even now he struggled to put it into words, and suddenly resentment, white hot and scalding, was blazing through him again, lifting above that line of pain. "He shorted out the car's engine."

Not so much as a flicker from his father, but Virgil drew in his breath in horror.

"He wouldn't!"

"Yeah? Go and see for yourself. A whole carton of milk, right into the computer."

"Wow." Even John sounded impressed. "I'm surprised you didn't dismember him."

"I just about did."

Dad raised his hand from the table, signalling his impatience with anything but accuracy.

"Are you saying you hit him?" His dad could get a world of meaning in the smallest of words; 'hit' came loaded with all the contempt Jeff Tracy had for bullies. Forceful and dominating as he could be, it was only ever in the service of a goal, and never tainted with malice. 'Hit' had all the eponymous power of its meaning, and felt like a slap.

The resentment fanned higher.

"I grabbed him and pushed him. I guess he hit the post. Dad, he – "

"Save it." Dad's mouth firmed, an end of discussion grimace. "When did you last see him?"

"I told him to get out and he took off. I guess – an hour ago?"

Dad considered this, his eyes boring straight into Scott's soul.

"I did not need this tonight, Scott."

"Neither did I."

"I daresay you didn't, but right now your brother is not here and a perfectly good meal is in danger of getting ruined."

Virgil stood up.

"I'll go look in the barn. He might've doubled back."

Dad nodded.

"John, take Alan and check the house. Get him to show you every hiding place Gordon might have inside here."

Scott went to move as well, but his father lifted his hand in the smallest of gestures that pinned him to the spot.

"You stay here, help your grandmother cover up this food. I'm sorry my children have spoiled the supper, Mother."

"It'll keep." Grandma brought a cover over from the bench and placed it over the potatoes, taking the opportunity to put her hand on Scott's shoulder. She squeezed it gently. "My Irish stew can withstand a nuclear blast. Or so I heard a certain junior Tracy say last week. Don't go worrying about your brother, Scott. I'm sure he'll be fine. That one's made of rubber, he always bounces back."

A shard of something else sliced into him, something he didn't want to consider just now. Truth was, his thoughts about Gordon had nothing to do with worry, everything to do with a kind of hatred that burned him even as he directed it towards his brother.

Nothing else was said. The old kitchen clock ticked noisily on the wall above the sink, the house creaked as John and Alan criss-crossed through rooms above, and Jeff Tracy stared at the table top, mind obviously elsewhere, but whether he was dwelling on his troublesome sons or his recalcitrant factories or the inedibility of Grandma's supper, it was impossible for Scott to discern. Outside, the night was fully declared, and even though Virgil had closed the door behind him, it felt as though the evening's frost was creeping across the floor to chill all three of them where they sat.

At last, and startling in his noise, Virgil burst back in.

"Can't find him. Looked all through the hayloft, right round the back. He's not there."

Seconds later, John and Alan came down to re-join them.

"No sign of him, Dad," John said. He cast a troubled look to where Scott sat in stiff silence alongside his father.

Jeff sighed.

"Right. I'll take the jumper. He won't have gone far. Scott? With me."

"I'll come, too," said Virgil, quickly. Jeff shook his head.

"Scott will come, that's enough. We don't need the entire household uprooted for one ten year old."

"Dad, I'd like to come."

Virgil was doing this, nowadays. Where once he was almost always pliant and easy going, now he was choosing moments to square his stance and lift his thirteen year old chin. The odd thing was, it never felt like defiance. Scott hated to admit it, but most of the time when Virgil did this, it felt like a statement of common-sense in human form.

He wondered, briefly, when that had changed.

His father stared at Virgil for a moment then, decisive as ever, nodded.

"Alright. Bring a blanket. Kid'll be cold."

"Yessir."

All of this fuss, all of this trouble, for a brat who destroyed the thing that was most precious to him. Scott scowled his way out to the jumper.

"I'll get her re-charged," Virgil began, but Dad waved him off.

"I recharged at work. It's got enough power. We'll just take her straight up. I'll use the scanner, I'd like to bet he hasn't gone further than the fork."

The fork in the road that led to the farm was two hundred yards away. The jumper, more properly called a Strato-lite Commuter 600, was a solar-charged six-seater craft with VTOL that was used throughout the world for trips of up to 300 miles. John called it The Flea, for the way it hopped up and away, almost noiselessly, springing straight into the air and then disappearing at a speed of knots that made the 320 kilometres to Kansas City a twenty minute jump.

Hunters of all kinds, including police and rescue services, used the infrared scanner included in the standard model. It could differentiate between human and animal readings, and had been instrumental in several searches for lost trekkers and climbers having a happy outcome.

One small ten year old boy would be no challenge for it.

Scott jumped up into the seat behind his father, leaving the shotgun position for Virgil. The truth was he felt no urgency to find Gordon. He didn't know what he would say or do when he saw him again, and he wasn't in any hurry to find out. If Gordon taunted him, or whined about it, or made some kind of joke…

The jumper demonstrated the applicability of the nickname John had bestowed by shooting straight upwards to hover in the air at 100 feet.

Jeff turned on the scanner, and Virgil checked it anxiously.

"No sign of him, Dad," he said. Jeff's frown deepened.

"He must have been travelling when he left."

"Widen the search parameter?'

"You've got it at 250 feet?"

"Yessir."

"Make it 500."

Still nothing. Scott found his eyes drawn to the screen, watching as an occasional cow or horse showed up in its otherwise blank surface.

That shard turned a little inside him.

"Where the hell has he got to?" Irritation began to melt into concern, as Jeff manoeuvred the craft to turn to the east, to lift another fifty feet into the air.

"Try again. Thousand yards."

"Nothing." Virgil took his gaze away from the screen to star uselessly out at the night. "Maybe we should – "

"Hold on, Virgil. We'll head down towards the mill-pond, do a thousand yard sweep from there."

The mill-pond was over a mile down the road.

"He wouldn't have gone that far," Scott protested. "He's just sulking. Or scared he's in trouble."

"We'll discuss the finer points of this mess later." Dad's implication that it wouldn't only be Gordon who had some explaining was clear. "In the meantime, we'll try this."

The jumper hummed along at 150 feet in the air, the scanner covering the darkened ground below.

"There! Someone's there." Virgil sounded worried, and somehow that tasted sour to Scott. The thought that Gordon could be upset enough to run this far seemed only fair, given his unforgivable actions in the barn. He watched as the image in the screen was maximised so that they could see the shock of light colour at the top of the figure coming through on the infrared. Definitely blond headed Gordon. Definitely his brother.

"Landing now," said Dad, and the jumper settled down onto the old track, only a little dirt displaced upward by the VTOL gentling the descent. His father switched on the larger floodlights, used in actual rescues.

This wasn't a rescue. It was a retrieval. One errant brat, mulishly staying out despite his fear of the dark, just so he could ruin supper, just so he could get everyone's attention even more than he already did.

Light flared up and the rural scene was suddenly illuminated, each blade of grass and fence post stark against the blackness surrounding them.

Gordon was caught in the light, too.

Virgil gave a soft gasp. Jeff moved quickly, opening the door and dropping from the jumper into the kind of quick-walk adopted by military everywhere when they needed to move smartly but wanted to avoid panic.

Scott drew in a deep breath. His chest felt tight. He climbed out and followed his brother and father across the track, to the grassy verge.

His brother was clinging to a fencepost, his head tucked down into its weathered surface.

It was only when Scott got closer than a few feet that he could see his whole body was shaking.

"Gordon. Gordon. Look at me, son."

Always amazed Scott, how deep and soft his dad could make his voice sound when he needed to.

Gordon didn't move. His fingers were pressing deep into the wood of the post, finding the fissures in the timber, burrowing into them.

"Hey, hey, Gordy? Look at me. It's Virgil. Gordy?"

"Scott, get the flashlight from the jumper," Dad said, his voice still soft, the order conveyed as a gentle suggestion in order not to startle the boy in front of him.

The very helpless, very frightened little boy.

Scott's friend Jake had an old grain store on his farm. On its first storey there was a tip-board that would maintain an even surface until the mechanism holding it there was released, at which point it would change from a floor into a trapdoor, and everything standing on it would slide through to the hole below.

His world was a trapdoor, tipping up, and he had just dropped down it.

The steady buzz of resentment and hurt slid away, flipped downwards into something ugly and cold and sickening.

"The flashlight, Scott," his father said again, still soft, but now demanding focus. Blindly, Scott headed back for the jumper, opened the door and reached beneath the flight panel to where a flashlight was always stashed. He took it back to his father, and watched as Dad turned it on and then, holding it down so that it wouldn't blind the boy shaking and quivering on the ground, clinging to the post, he managed to carefully illuminate Gordon's face.

His eyes were wide, unseeing. No tears now, but the tracks of them were worn into the grime on this face.

"Gordon? Son, it's Dad. Can you look at me, Gordy?"

There was no response. Just more silent shivering, more stark terror.

Virgil reached over and carefully traced his fingers over the back of Gordon's head.

"Dad, he's got a massive knot back here."

The cold in Scott's gut turned to ice, sharp and hard.

"Mm-hmm. He's in shock, I think. Can you get that blanket, Virgil? Easy now. Easy, son. I'm here. We're going to make you nice and warm. Take you home."

At that, Gordon blinked, rapidly, and then his head turned, so slowly it seemed to be rusted in place. His voice, when it came, sounded vague, lost, so faraway the concept uttered made almost no sense to him.

"Home?"

That did it.

Scott turned away and stumbled from the group by the post, to rest his hands on his knees and throw up everything he'd ever eaten.

Thank god for Virgil.

The trip to the hospital was gone in a haze. Virgil sat in back with Gordon tightly snuggled up against him, wrapped in the blanket and soothed by Virgil's constant talk, a kind of meaningless chatter that filled the conversational void otherwise threatening to suck all the oxygen out of the plane.

Dad's face was frozen.

Scott never cried. But tears kept filling his eyes, stupid, useless things that he didn't know were in him and so couldn't guard against. He had no right to them, and they offered no release, but they kept coming. He turned his face to the window where he sat alongside his father and let them fall so no one could see him trying to wipe them away.

The shame was breathtaking. Literally. Twice he had to take sudden, shuddering breaths when he realised he was growing lightheaded through his lack of oxygen intake. His chest hurt whether he breathed or not, so he couldn't always tell what he needed, and didn't care enough to try.

John talked about teleology only last week. The purpose of things. Their aim. Their intention.

"Virgil's purpose is to eat everything not capable of running away from him," Scott said.

"Alan's telos is to expend every ounce of energy he possesses in the shortest possible time." John was smiling, that soft kind of indulgent smile he got when they idly discussed their brothers.

"And Gordon's is to drive me crazy, apparently."

They both laughed, because hey, it was funny, and Gordon had been relentlessly at Scott for over a month now. Better to laugh about it than bitch about it, right?

Better to joke than to bash your brother's head against a post so hard he was concussed and ran away in terror from you.

They didn't say it, because they didn't need to. Scott's purpose was what it always had been. To look after his brothers, to shield them from the world as best he could, to be their champion, their knight-protector. His self-appointed role, one he'd met every day since he was old enough to realise what old enough meant. He was old enough to look out for John, for Virgil. He was old enough to care for Gordon, for Alan.

And now he felt as helpless and sorry as a five year old, sitting silent in the front seat of the jumper, watching as his dad brought the plane to land in the emergency access station of the Stormont Vail Hospital in Topeka. Topeka was less familiar to the Tracy children, as Tracy Industries was based in Kansas City and big city trips were almost always connected to business; but it was nearer to Coniston and Oskaloosa, Jeff knew the chief administrator at Stormont Vail, and the saving of five minutes flight time mattered.

They didn't talk, he and his dad, until attendants had come and placed Gordon onto a stretcher – an old manual one, not the new hover-board versions just released by Tracy Industries – and took him carefully in to be scanned and assessed. They trailed along behind it, until swinging doors prevented them accompanying him any further. Virgil promptly sat in one of the hard vinyl seats, as if someone had pushed him down.

When Jeff Tracy turned to face him – and it was Jeff Tracy, not Dad, there was a difference – Scott was ready to welcome the fire and brimstone about to be brought down upon him.

"What happened?"

He knew what was being asked. The bare details were already in Jeff's grasp. Now he wanted reasons.

"I got mad." Scott listened to the words echo against the linoleum, heard the inadequacy, searched for something better within him and came up empty. "I got mad."

Jeff stared at him.

It wasn't a look Scott had ever encountered before. It wasn't disappointment. It wasn't anger. It was as though his father was looking at a stranger, figuring out a new species of boy, and Scott hated it with every fibre of his being that wasn't already consumed by sorrow.

There was no point in saying he was sorry. Of course he was sorry. Either Jeff Tracy understood that he was – categorically, catastrophically, sorry – or he didn't. Words wouldn't help.

After a long time, as long as any he'd ever known, his father nodded, slightly.

"You know – you know this can never happen again."

It wasn't a question.

The thought of feeling this guilt, this shame, ever again brought a quick spike of terror.

Never again. No, please, never again.

But.

"Dad?" His voice was choked, quick, as if he didn't deserve to speak. His father met his eyes with his own. "What if – what if I can't…"

"You will." Decisive, firm, and he had obviously understood the fear at the heart of the question. "You won't let this happen again."

"I might. It was – Dad, I – "

"Horrible, isn't it?" His father was smiling, a bitter twist of his mouth. "When a man becomes an animal. Most frightening thing on the planet."

Scott could only nod, his throat filling up.

Dad continued, evenly.

"You've got anger in you. That's good. You need passion, you need drive. Anger can work for you. You need it, sometimes. But Scott – you can never let it rule you."

"Never," Scott echoed, and his father nodded again.

"I'm not going to punish you, Scott. I know you too well. You'll punish yourself for the next fifty years over this. I can tell you not to, but it might just be a good thing. Just – remember what you felt when you saw your brother. Remember how this feels."

Scott swallowed, hard.

"Yessir."

"I know." Dad gave a brief, mirthless chuckle. "You and he - I know he's been working your last nerve lately. But Scott? You'll always be stronger and bigger and braver than most. You can never be this. You have got to commit to that, right now, and for good."

Scott nodded, and dropped his head. If regret was a disease, he was deathly sick. And somewhere in his mind he understood that his father's refusal to punish him was a punishment in its own right. There was no fine to be paid, no recompense to be offered. This was his father's lesson. Nothing made this better; once violence was visited upon another, the only catharsis that could be offered came from the victim, and no amount of forgiveness or restitution would undo the damage.

His dad talked about being big and strong and he had never felt so small.

To his surprise, Dad reached out and put his hand behind Scott's neck, cupping his head briefly, before stepping away.

"I'm going to go see what's what. You boys stay here."

That moment, that one gesture, offered him a flimsy anchor to the company of the human race. Its kindness was cruel. His neck tingled where his dad's hand had been, and it felt as though a weight had been dropped upon him even as he was roped and tied and hauled in from his own solitude, his own wilderness.

Virgil was another matter.

The gap between thirteen and sixteen usually felt pretty huge. It was the difference between the slow ending of childhood and the head-rush beginning of adulthood, and it was rare that Scott looked over his shoulder to see what his brother had to say.

Now he stood feet away from Virgil and found he didn't know if he wanted to hear it.

He could almost feel the disapproval thrumming through the air as Virgil sat there in a vinyl chair that squeaked every time he shifted. And he was shifting a lot.

"Virgil. If you've got something to say…"

"You gonna slam me against something, too?"

Yeah. Virgil rarely lost his temper. This wasn't something he would have to deal with often, like Scott. But tonight – tonight, he was steaming.

"I'm sorry, Virgil." Funny, how he could say it to his brother but not to his dad. "I'm really sorry."

"Sure." That wasn't going to be nearly enough. "I keep imagining him running off, all dazed, and then realising he was miles from home and outside alone in the dark. Do you have any idea how much he would have freaked? How awful that would be for him? He would have been so darn scared, all that time, you have no clue."

Scott folded his arms across his belly.

"I know. I do. I swear, Virgil. I'll make it up to him. He's been driving me crazy like Dad said, but I'll let him. Hell, he can do what he likes, I won't bite. So long as he's okay, I'll take whatever he dishes out."

"Whatever – shit, Scott, you really don't get it, do you?"

It was rare that anyone looked at Scott Carpenter Tracy as if he was a moron. It was just another new experience to add to the shittiness of the night.

"I get that he's been a pain in my butt since – "

"Since when, genius?"

Scott frowned. "I don't know. Since a month, maybe?"

"Right." If Virgil spat the words they wouldn't be any more venomous. "And what happened before that?"

"I don't know!" Some of his contrition was shifting aside to allow a flare of irritation. "We weren't talking much."

"At all, Scooter. At all. Ever since the graduation."

"Well, sure." He couldn't figure for a second why Virgil thought this was helping. "Since he ruined my grad. I had eight tickets, Virge, eight tickets. And you know how many people turned up? Four. Because Gordon was having a massive tantrum and Grandma had to stay behind with him. And the other two – " He drew in a breath. "You know why. So yeah. The day I really needed support he decided to make it all about him. So yeah, we weren't talking much, and I guess now he's decided to torment the shit out of me whenever he can." He paused, remembering where they were, and why. "Which, you know, he can. Whatever he wants."

"Christ. You two. Honestly. Don't you get it?" Sometimes Virgil could sound like a little old man. It was weird, coming out of a fresh faced kid who only just came up to Scott's chin height. The thing was, when you looked for it, Virgil had a way of standing tall that went beyond the physical. At Scott's no doubt clueless look, he continued, exasperated.

"Pulling pigtails, Scott. He's been pulling your pigtail."

Scott sighed, and sat heavily into the other chair.

"I'm not in the mood for figuring this out."

"He's trying to get you to like him again."

Scott's eyebrows rose, tiredly.

"He's what?"

"Trying to get your attention, to get you to like him."

He blinked at Virgil.

"That's a stupid way to do it."

"Well, yeah. He's ten years old. And he's Gordon."

An image came to him then; of Gordon, peering down at him from the hayloft. It was an image of uncertainty, of crushed hope, and it belonged to a time before the little boy owning it was hurt so badly by the big brother who should have been protecting him that he was now being assessed for concussion.

The thought of it brought such pain that he folded forward in the chair. Virgil didn't even seem to notice.

"And bottom line, Scott. It's just a car. I know you love it, but it's just a car. You hurt Gordon, you hurt him bad. You shouldn't have done it, not for a car."

Words were hard because breathing was hard, but he tried.

"I know. I know. I will never forgive myself. I mean it, Virge. But…"he hesitated, then continued. "It's not just a car. You don't understand, no one does, but it's not just a car."

"Well, what then?" The belligerence had died out of Virgil's voice. His younger brother simply sounded tired out, and sad.

He wanted to explain. He wanted Virgil to understand why seeing the engine die hurt as much as it did. He wanted to put into words everything it meant to him, why, but the words died in his throat before he could sound them.

And maybe, in the end, he didn't really know himself. Why he howled like a demented child. Why it felt as though his whole world had been carelessly, cruelly destroyed as the sparks popped bright in the darkening barn.

It would take effort and insight beyond him tonight, so instead he just nodded and closed the eyes that were sore and red and sick of the bright hospital lighting.

"You're right," he said. "It's just a car."


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary:**

Lucille.

 **Notes:**

And, of course, as ever, a huge thank you to the best beta in the business, Soleil_Lumiere.

 **Chapter Text**

Lucille walked over to the barn carefully carrying the two coffees. It had been a long day for her eldest, her big, brave boy, and something of a rite of passage, as male things went, she supposed.

"You here?" she called, peering through the barn doors.

"Mom! Yeah, come and look!"

Scott practically danced over to her to take the coffees and set them safely aside before grabbing her hand and dragging her over. "Isn't she a beauty?"

The eye of this beholder struggled to find it, but she basked in his pleasure. Moments like this were yellow skies of calmness in the hurricane of her life as wife to Jeff Tracy, mother to five boys.

"It's going to take a lot of work."

"I know. A lot. And I don't know if I can get her going."

"Looks kinda ruined," she agreed, eyeing him.

He spun on his toes, giddy with ownership and adventure. "Wanna bet I can't?"

She burst out laughing.

"Nope. I would never take that bet, darling boy." She gave him a hug. "You know very well that once you make up your mind to do something, you'll get it done."

He hugged her back, easy and free.

She'd begun to understand how a parent could truly admire and respect their child when he was so young, eight or so, the self-appointed guardian of his brothers. She'd watch him take on that role, for her boys and then for Kayo, and each ounce of responsibility seemed to fill him out, make him better.

But it was this side of him that she loved; Scott Carpenter Tracy, the gleam of conquest in his eye so like his father's, self-reliant and driven and yet still capable of hugs so sweet she had to be careful not to cry.

John resisted hugs, unless they were on his terms. Virgil gave them easily and often, compulsively. Gordon attacked affection like he attacked everything else, with enormous gusto and alarming vigor, and Alan's hugs were still those of a baby, looking for assurance in a vast and rocking world.

But Scott had a way of handing out hugs that gave more than they took. She always walked a little taller after one of Scott's hugs.

"Does it have a name? She! Does she have a name?"

"Seriously?"

She shrugged. "Just wondering. I'd name her."

"Guys don't name their cars, Mom."

"Your father named the TV remote."

"He did?" Scott shook his head, exaggerated in his disgust at the news. "He's going senile, Mom. Take the keys."

"Don't let your father hear you say that!" But she laughed, delighted, as she always did when Scott showed signs of breaking away from Jeff. She loved them both, so much it astonished her at times, but she could see how the one could consume the other.

Micro-rebellions were good.

She watched as her son crouched down behind his newest and unloveliest acquisition, tapping experimentally at the clods of earth stuck to its sides. His care for it brought out an echoing tenderness in her.

"She's lovely, Scotty." Then, deliberately coquettish and amused by herself as she did so, she asked, "Will you take me for a ride in her when she's ready?"

Scott's head bobbed up from the other side of the car.

"You bet. You'll be the first one I take. We'll drive to Hemmed in Hollow, just you and me, Mom, catch the sunset."

"Deal."

Carefully, she ran her hand along the bonnet, beginning to sense the lines of her, to see the potential for sleekness. "I can't wait. She's going to be beautiful, Scooter."

"I know. It's how I knew, when I saw her online." Scott straightened up and ran his hands along the same trajectory. "She's got real quality, Mom, good bones. And that's the thing. I'm not even gonna say I'm bringing her back to life, because when something's this beautiful, it can never die."

A quick, wistful pang, and then she nodded, and gave him the best smile she had. She reached over and retrieved the coffees, gave him one.

"To beautiful things." They bumped their cups together, and she winked.

"I'll see you at the Hollow."


End file.
